Devils with Wings (31 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Paul sent two men to collect a second fifty-kilogram charge from the glider; they would need it for their next target. They returned five minutes later, breathing heavily, handing the two charges to other colleagues.

“Ok, let’s get going.”

They were to join up with the rest of Paul’s assault force at MiNord, designated to be the assault group’s command post. There they would also meet up with their Group Commander Oberleutnant Faust.

MiNord was a machine gun bunker which could cause considerable risk to the other troops carrying out their specific tasks that morning. All being well, this bunker should have already have been taken out of action.

But on their way there, they had a second objective to take out, MiSud. Like Fischer’s troop, they also had two targets.

Paul gathered his assault troop together and they headed northeast to MiSud.

He hoped they had been successful in capturing MiNord, as those three machine guns covered the flat top of the fortress in a two hundred and ninety degree arc, and if they saw his troop crossing, they would make a perfect target.

MiSud was about three hundred paces to their northeast, but they knew that MiSud had a machine gun covering the bunkers south west arc. So Paul led his team east to come in around the back of the bunker, even though it took them directly into the firing line of MiNord.

An explosion lit up the sky in the vicinity of MiNord, easing Paul’s fears slightly. This meant that not only would the occupants of the bunker be distracted due to its focus on its own safety, it would also give the combatants in MiSud something to occupy their minds.

Paul could hear the two men carrying the wounded Weyer, grunting behind him, Hempel and Kienitz had taken over carrying the make-do stretcher.

He raised his hand to stop them and crouched down, everyone followed suit.

They were approaching directly behind the casemate now.

He turned to the two stretcher-bearers.

“We’re here. Leave Weyer there and we’ll move forwards another ten metres, let’s go.”

They advanced closer to the target, and then in a line watched it for a few seconds, confirming that there were no troops waiting for them outside.

Once he was satisfied that all was quite he gave the order, “Go”.

Forster ran straight for the bunker, jinking from side to side like a hare being chased by a fox, finally turning right to run up the path at the side taking him to the top.

As he got to the top he could see the bunker had a periscope hole. He quickly pulled a one-kilogram charge from his pack, hastily igniting the fuse, and after a two second count threw it into the periscope hole.

He dropped flat onto the roof, covering his ears as two seconds later the conventional charge exploded.

Feet could be heard running away from the charge when it was thrown but after the explosion and its sound effects had died down, there was silence.

Forster then stayed where he was providing cover for the rest of the troop.

This distraction gave Paul the opportunity to carry out his next attack on this perceived indestructible target.

Once the explosion, initiated by Forster had occurred, Kempf and Konrad ran forward to the southern facing embrasure, containing one of the machine guns.

Kempf quickly and quietly placed a six-kilogram pole charge into the stepped gun slit and set the fuses.

He shouted, “fire,” and whizzed round to the rear of the casemate joining Konrad and they both flattened themselves against the wall.

Above them, hearing the words “fire”, Forster prostrated himself on the roof.

No sooner had the words left Kempf ’s mouth than the explosive located in the gun slit exploded.

They returned to the troop’s positions, passed on their way by Straube and Kienitz, carrying the last fifty-kilogram hollow charge between them.

Placing the lower half against the wall quickly followed by Straube’s contribution, the apparatus was assembled.

This time no one was hanging around, they had already seen its power on top of Maastricht One; they wanted to get as far away as possible.

Even Forster wasn’t chancing it and joined them as they sped east to join the other paratroopers.

They slid to a halt in between Paul and Hempel, wriggling down into the slight hollow they had discovered earlier.

“It’s done sir, pray to God it does the trick.”

They all buried themselves as deep into the trough as was humanly possible, hugging the ground as if it were a lover.

The air was wrenched from their lungs and the force of the discharge tried to tear their hands away from their ears, hands quickly placed there to deaden the sound of the detonation.

A hot blast passed over the tops of their heads and they would have surely burnt but for the protection of their Para helmets. Black turned to white as the multiple flashes of the detonation lit up the area. Kienitz’s arm seemed to jerk in a strobe like effect, as if in a black and white film.

He moved his arm to his side, to touch the place where he had felt something glance against his leg, pulling his arm back, his hand was wet and he could smell the warm scent of blood on it.

“I think I’ve been hit sir,” he said calmly.

Inside the complex, soldiers were blown back against the walls of the bunker; some of them were terribly burnt but still alive, running, screaming through the corridors past their comrades, trying to seek relief from the terrible, searing pain.

Now the sound of the explosion had subsided, Paul and his men could hear the screaming agony of the wounded soldiers deep down in the bunker, recently their home, but now for some, it would prove to be their coffin and final resting place.

Although he and his men felt for them, as they were soldiers too, it was brief, as they still had a task to complete and now was not the time for self-indulgence.

The troopers were alert now, as the area suddenly became quiet, apart from the occasional staccato of machine gun fire in the distance.

Movement could be heard to their left, German voices shouted recognition codes, identifying them as Max’s troop returning to the fold after effectively destroying their target, Maastricht two, the bunker complex with three seventy-five millimetre guns.

Max’s bulk suddenly appeared at his platoon commander’s side as he was examining Kienitz’s injury. He was lucky, it was minor, caused by a piece metal or concrete from the last explosion slicing through his combat trousers and taking a two centimetre chunk of flesh with it.

Paul tore at the trouser leg, while Max placed a field dressing over it.

“I guessed it was you sir causing all of this racket. And what do you call this Kienitz, it’s just a bloody scratch,” he said smiling, “and you’ve the platoon commander acting as your bloody nurse.”

“It’s good to see you too Unterfeldwebel,” responded Kienitz, returning the smile, but with a short wince in between as the bandage was pressed down on his wound.

“I’m glad to see that your concern over your men’s well being is at the forefront as usual.”

Max picked up Kienitz’s hand and placed it on the bandage, telling him to press down on it and hold it there while he bound it to his leg.

“You’ll be up and about in a few minutes,” he scoffed.

“It’s good to see you Max, I take it all went well, asked Paul?”

“A piece of cake sir, I see you have things sewn up here.”

“Unfortunately Weyer has been badly hit and we’ve still to check out this bunker. Could you get your guys to set up an all round defence and see to Weyer while we finish this his off?”

“Consider it done sir,” and he started to get up to carry out his orders.

“And Max,” the Unterfeldwebel stopped and turned around to face Paul, “it’s good to see you.”

“You too sir, I told you we’d get this done,” with that he got up and left to organise his men.

The next step was to check out the damage done so far.

Now that Paul’s troop had some local cover from Max’s men, they all moved forward to look at the extent of the damage.

A hole had been burnt right through the concrete. The shockwave propagated, followed by the hot, explosive gases mixed with vaporised steel and concrete, which had tore into the men stationed inside, turning some into blackened and blistered corpses in front of the eyes of their fellow soldiers who were not close enough, so survived the initial impact and the subsequent effects of the explosion.

It had done its job and the hole was large enough for the paratroopers to get through.

The troop could climb through the sixty-centimetre gap, so they did.

But before that, two grenades were thrown in for good measure and once the force of the blast had dissipated, they climbed through.

Oberjager Forster and Jager Straube gently eased their way in. They knew they had a few minutes grace as the enemy would still be recovering from the exploding grenades, but that didn’t stop them from tossing one back, if they knew that enemy soldiers had entered their gun room.

When they climbed through it was very dark and full of smoke caused by the various explosions. They waited for the smoke to disperse not knowing what they would walk in to, but it didn’t and they couldn’t see a hand in front of their face. The smoke and fumes was also starting to gag on their throats, coughing would give them and their position away.

Eventually they put on their gas masks and eased their way further into the casemate, the bunker. There were no lights, so they hurriedly found their torches, glad that their platoon commander had insisted that they should be ready at hand, and scanned the inside of the bunker, seeing three dead soldiers lying there along with two wounded.

It was carnage!

Both were wounded badly and suffering from severe concussion. They went to look at them, but there wasn’t much they could do. They needed to look to their security first.

They moved further into the bunker and saw a second Belgian gun crew, they had all fallen by the northern machine gun post, and they were all dead.

The trooper felt his way further and further into the room, hearing the breathing of Straube rasping through the gas mask following behind him.

Somewhere to his front and to the right a telephone suddenly rang. The paratrooper visibly jumped.

Straube said, “It’s just a telephone, aren’t you going to answer it?”

“Ok then,” replied Forster, slightly bemused by this event.

He felt his way along the wall getting closer to the field telephone and picked it up.

“Was ist eine Angelegenheit, dies ist nun ein Deutsch Festung (What is a matter, this is now a German fortress).”

There was a scramble of voices on the other end of the phone and Forster put the phone down.

Forster and Straube both suppressed a laugh, had they not been wearing gas masks, their grins would have been easily seen by torchlight.

When they got to the end, they slowly made their way down some steps, but at the bottom steel doors barred their way and so they returned to the top.

The Belgian troops probably demoralised by the sheer and destructive force of the explosions had retreated from the casemate and pulled back down the tunnels into the interior of the fort, leaving their dead and wounded behind.

They returned back to the wounded, they were both in a bad way, but they had to leave them as the fort was still not completely in their hands, just yet.

They switched off their troches and headed for the light now showing through the gaping hole in the side of the bunker and climbed back out to report their findings to their officer.

On getting out they peeled off their gas masks, breathing the fresh air, their faces smoke black where the mask had not covered them.

Paul handed them his canteen, he could imagine what their throats must feel like having to initially breathe in the smoke, fumes and dust inside.

“Well, report.”

Paul needed to know, he had decisions to make about whether to move his entire force to the HQ, or leave an element here.

Forster started, “it’s a bloodbath in there sir. The machine guns are finished; they won’t be using them again very quickly.”

“What about soldiers?” probed Paul, needing a full assessment.

“There are at least five dead that we could see sir, and two wounded.”

“How badly?”

“One won’t make it through the night, but the other could survive if treated soon.”

“What else?” asked Paul quickly.

“We followed the steps to the bottom, but the steel doors were well and truly shut, I think they know that there is nothing to come up here for. It’s finished as a defensive point.”

Paul called Obergefrieter Konrad over to join them.

“Forster will update you, but I want you, these two and Hempel to remain here. Get a recognition signal on top and see what you can do for the Belgian wounded.”

“Will do sir,” responded Konrad, “where will the rest of the troop be?”

“I’ll take them with me to our HQ, which is hopefully MiNord, for an update. Once I know the current status, I’ll get word to you. Keep your wits about you, this isn’t over yet.”

“I agree sir,” approved Max as he joined in the conversation. “They haven’t counter attacked yet, but it’s bound to happen soon.”

“You heard the Unterfeldwebel, stay alert.”

“We need to get away sir,” reminded Max, “there may still be plenty to do and we need to touch base with the Group.”

The remainder of Paul’s troop rapidly moved away from the emplacement, followed by Unterfeldwebel Grun and his men.

They had again picked up Weyer, who was still unconscious, although they had managed to staunch most of the blood loss, but he needed to remain in one place, not jigged around every five or ten minutes. Once at the headquarters, he could get more attentive treatment.

They headed north east towards MiNord and after a matter of minutes were challenged by German paratroopers from the other glider parties that had landed to secure MiNord, Eben two, an observation cupola, and two further cupolas that were found to be dummies.

The bunker had been secured and Paul could see the effects of a fifty-kilogram weapon against the side of the casemate, where a hole big enough to climb through had been blown.